In the United States, state and local authorities are in charge of
voting and the country uses more than a half dozen different voting technologies.
As a result, the country can't guarantee that it accurately counts national votes
in a timely fashion. This article discusses the problem and potential solutions to the U.S. voting dilemma.

The technology is irrelevant. It probably make the problem worse. The UK has exclusively paper-based, x-marks-the-candidate, hand-counted ballots and results are very seldom contested. Every candidate or their party can choose to watch the votes being counted, undermining any subsequent attempt to question the credibility.

Having a national election's voting procedure under the control of local state judges is madness. I fully understand the US attachment to decentralised power, but a federal election should come under federal control, just as a state election should come under state control.

Having a national election's voting procedure under the control of local state judges is madness. I fully understand the US attachment to decentralised power, but a federal election should come under federal control, just as a state election should come under state control.

That may be 'ideal' from your point of view but it would be too cumbersome and expensive to work. By that logic, County elections would also be separate as would be City elections. Would each of these elections be run independently, in different locations, at different times??? What your suggesting is breaking up elections into smaller elections possibly occurring simultaneously or maybe not. I refuse to go vote 4 times just to get through one election cycle. That is utterly asinine.

Elections are in the hands of the States and it will continue that way. You understand the attachment to decentralized power but it doesn't sound like you understand it's implementation. It's called cooperation.

"Having a national election's voting procedure under the control of local state judges is madness. I fully understand the US attachment to decentralised power, but a federal election should come under federal control, just as a state election should come under state control.

That may be 'ideal' from your point of view but it would be too cumbersome and expensive to work. By that logic, County elections would also be separate as would be City elections. Would each of these elections be run independently, in different locations, at different times??? What your suggesting is breaking up elections into smaller elections possibly occurring simultaneously or maybe not. I refuse to go vote 4 times just to get through one election cycle. That is utterly asinine.

Elections are in the hands of the States and it will continue that way. You understand the attachment to decentralized power but it doesn't sound like you understand it's implementation. It's called cooperation. "

That is silly, we in Canada have no problem with FEDERAL elections run by a federal agency across the country. Provincial/Municipal elections are handled by the province. Believe me, our provinces are just as strong on decentralization/jurisdiction as US states. We have stronger provinces than your states in terms of autonomy and powers.

Hand-counted paper ballots are infeasible in the American system of electoral government.

A typical west coast ballot contains as many as 30 separate elections on a single piece of paper -- for county supervisor, for judge, for the port authority, for a bunch of referendums, for a bunch of initiatives, etc. Out of those 30 elections, no more than 3 are for federal offices.

East coast ballots tend to be simpler because there is less direct democracy -- judges are appointed, referendums are rare, and the initiative is not available. However, this still leaves as many as 10 elections on a single ballot.

This is why almost all areas with paper ballots nevertheless use computerized counting technology. (Optical/digital scan.) It would simply be too costly to count 30 elections by hand.

What needs fixing is not American elections -- but the American governmental structure. However, it appears highly unlikely that we'll see substantial change in the next 10 or 20 years.